Blanka Bednarz - Violin

Concerts With the Connecticut Virtuosi:
October 19, 2007 -  Debut in Beethoven's Triple Concerto

Blanka Bednarz enjoys a versatile career as a chamber musician, soloist, , recitalist, concertmaster and teacher. She has concertized in Europe and the United States, appearing on stages such as Jordan Hall, Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, Miller Hall, Kosciuszko Foundation House, and many others. She has appeared as a soloist with the Great Poland Symphony and Sinfonietta Polonia, the New England Conservatory Honors Symphony and Chamber Orchestra, Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra, among others. Bednarz was particularly influential in the establishment of the New England Conservatory Chamber Orchestra.
Bednarz is a recipient of several awards, from the Presser Foundation, the St. Bololph Club Foundation and the Tourjée Society. She is a winner in the Naftzger Young Artist Competition and took the second prize at the Jefferson Symphony Concerto Competition. Among artists with whom she has collaborated are Eric Rosenblith, Lawrence Lesser, Joanna Kurkowicz, Irina Muresanu, Adrian Levine, Timothy Deighton, Barry Snyder, Ning An, Rita Sloan, the Corigliano Quartet, Red and White, the award winning Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston and Alarm Will Sound. Dr. Bednarz studied violin with Eric Rosenblith (MM, DMA), Michele Auclair, Ben Sayevich (BM) and Jadwiga Kaliszewska, and viola with James Dunham. Her coaches were members of the Cleveland, Guarneri and Borromeo Quartets, James Buswell, Leon Kirchner and the late Eugene Lehner, among others.
Bednarz played with the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, Wichita Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Sinfonietta Polonia (www.sinfoniettapolonia.pl) an unique orchestral training program she and her husband/conductor Cheung Chau established in Poland.. As a member of the Huntington Piano Trio, Bednarz performed at the Weill Recital Hall under the auspices of MidAmerica Productions, on Boston's WGBH Radio and concert series, and on Polish Radio. Tygodnik Podhalanski described the trio's performance as 'beautifully sensitive,' and the Boston Globe praised its eloquent rendition of Kirchner's Second Trio. The trio released a CD under A.W. Promotions.
In 2002 Bednarz, cellist Cheung Chau and pianist Slawomir Dobrzanski formed the Atma Trio (www.atmatrio.org). The ensemble's performances meet with critical acclaim. Gazeta Wyborcza praised, for instance, Bednarz's "passionate performance and artistic maturity." A reviewer of the Radio Merkury noted "these are excellent musicians who truly know what it means to play chamber music." The Trio performed under the auspices of the Szymanowski and Hofmann Associations, Antonina Kawecka Foundation, in venues and at festivals such as the National Museum of Instruments, the Baltic Sea Culture Center, the White Hall, Wielkopolskie Centrum Chopinowskie, the Wieniawski Festival and the Days of Szymanowski Festival, the Mozart Festival, etc. The Trio broke several attendance records in Poland, performing also in Lithuania, Germany, and Sweden. In the US, the trio performed under the auspices of the Chopin Foundation of the US in Miami, at Lawrence Conservatory, at numerous universities, at the Chopin and Friends Festival in NYC, etc. It will release a CD in 2007. Bednarz may be heard on Capstone Records in music by R. Y. Gawlick. Soon another disc of Gawlick’s chamber music featuring Bednarz will be released. A CD of Mozart's Flute Quartets (E. Murawska, Bednarz, M. Murawski, Chau) was released and highly praised by Twoja Muza.
Bednarz is Assistant Professor in Violin and Viola at Dickinson College. She had served as a teaching assistant to Professor Rosenblith at the New England Conservatory, and had taught at the NEC Preparatory and Continuing Education School and Bethany College. She coached the NECCO with Donald Palma and chamber ensembles at the International Musical Arts Institute (IMAI) in Maine. She has also given master classes at NEC, for College and Preparatory Divisions, and at the University of Kansas, Lawrence Conservatory, Messiah College, Mercer University, Wichita State University, Penn State, etc.
This season Bednarz performs with members of Alarm Will Sound, with Atma Trio in Poland and Germany, in Music At First series in PA, in Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Connecticut Virtuosi, with pianist Matthew Bengtson in recital at the Philadelphia Ethical Society (under the auspices of the Kosciuszko Foundation), at Kansas State University. In 2007 Bednarz joins the Vega String Quartet in residence at Emory University in Atlanta.